


o' melody queen

by northernsdownpour



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Gen, M/M, gratuitous rewriting of some passages, i love adam parrish: an 8k essay, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-06-24 05:24:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15623502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/northernsdownpour/pseuds/northernsdownpour
Summary: The tower. His past.The hanged man. His present.Nine of Swords. His future.The Magician. His end.or: a character study of adam parrish, and the cards he pulled.





	1. I. THE TOWER

**Author's Note:**

> hey hey hey, i'm alive and i actually write lmfao. this is the first part of this fic and i'm actually not yet done with the last part but whatever. _however_ it's only a few scenes and i'm pretty sure i can churn it out in a week or so. i promise.
> 
> anyways, enjoy this and warning, it's not beta-ed and only slightly edited and in fact the only piece of writing i've finished since _eros to agape_ which i posted...a year ago? so yikes. any mistakes are mine and kindly point it out!
> 
> characters and plot are not mine. it belongs to maggie stiefvater and the only thing i claim in this fic is my love for one adam parrish. title from sameer ahmed's poem "my destiny song".

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Danger, crisis, destruction, and liberation.  Unforeseen change._

Adam Parrish isn’t a stranger to loss.

It is etched in his skin, carved into his bones. Suffering clings to him like smoke, making him world-weary at the age sixteen. He knows how he looks compared to Aglionby’s students, taunt-skinned and fragile-looking against sun-kissed arms that boast of months spent at a yacht or Europe or someplace only the affluent reaches.

He knows how he looks, with his frayed secondhand sweater and jackets in the 90 degree heat to hide purple bruises. In a place full of faces that have never experienced skipping a meal or two, Adam knows he sticks out like a sore thumb.

Adam Parrish isn’t a stranger to loss. He so often walks the path that takes more than it gives that he wonders if he’ll ever trust a road with no misery.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

He knows of Gansey, but he doesn’t _know_ him.

To be fair, Adam also knows no one knows Gansey too, except maybe Lynch. Aglionby’s very own Golden Boy, Gansey talks to everyone, befriends everyone, but the only person he’d ever belong to was to Ronan Lynch. They’re a pair, a buy-one-get-one kind of deal. You don’t get Gansey without Lynch, nor do you get Lynch without Gansey.

Adam looks. He tries to resent them, boys who don’t know suffering, but can’t. They’re something about them, the way power clings to them the way suffering does him.

He tries to resent, but he can’t.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Adam still remembers the bruises he’s got the day he got accepted to Aglionby.

He had hoped to intercept the letter, racing home with his lungs on fire and heart on his throat, but he was Adam Parrish, and he knows his father had gotten the letter long before he saw it himself.

“You’re never satisfied, are you?” Robert Parrish sneers. He towers over his son, though Adam is only a little shorter than his father. “Where do you think we’ll get the money, out of our asses?”

“It’s scholarship.” Partly true. It’s partial scholarship, and he has to find another job to sustain himself, but it will be suicide to admit that to his father.

“ _Aglionby_!” his father snaps. He smells of alcohol and cigarette, never a good combination. “What, you a rich hussy now — _look at me when I’m talking to you!_ ”

He grabs Adam by his collar and yanks him forward. Adam’s thoughts scatter, and his knees slowly liquefy.

“They’re giving me money,” he gasps out. _A lie, a lie, a lie_. “Part of scholarship.”

Robert Parrish gives out a harsh laugh. It scrapes out Adam’s insides. “ _Aglionby_ , giving _you_ money? You’re not that important!”

Adam’s stomach drops. He forces himself to speak, to say _anything_ , but a response a second too late is enough for his dad to throw his arm out, letting Adam fall to the ground.

Adam was too slow to block out the first punch. And the second. And the third. He throws his arm over his head, protecting it as much as he can. Soon, it’s a motley of purple, a sight Adam is too familiar of.

Another sacrifice.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Adam Parrish knows of Ronan Lynch, but now, he isn’t sure if he ever does.

He knows what happened. A tragedy as big as this one happening in a town as small as Henrietta is a gossip that will last years. Especially since it happened to a Raven Boy, for whom the town has little love for, it’s no wonder the whole town knew of Niall Lynch’s death before it reached lunch time.

Now, a week after his father’s death, Adam can’t help but notice Ronan Lynch.

Ronan Lynch was never the happiest guy in Aglionby nor was he the friendliest, but the Ronan Lynch that came back from the tragedy is unrecognizable. He’d shaved his head to his scalp, and whatever semblance of happiness had bled out of him. He is all sharp edges and Adam fears if he reaches out to touch him, he’d only cut himself.

Only Gansey had stuck beside him. He’d endured Lynch’s biting remarks and let himself bleed if it means Lynch leeches his pain out of him.

Adam second guesses his first impression on them. Maybe they _had_ known what suffering is.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

The day he meets Gansey, he is dead tired.

He spent half the night at the mechanic shop, getting his hand greased and trying to remember the order of presidents and getting half of everything muddled up. He’d gotten an hour less than his usual sleep and his eyes are slowly closing as he pedals on.

He nearly crashes his bike when he sees Gansey bending over the engine of his extremely orange Camaro. Every atom of Adam’s being is screaming at him to move, but he parks him bike and takes a step.

It doesn’t surprise Adam the slightest to see the Camaro break down. He’d seen it in tow twice now. But he’s never been more nervous that he is right now, kicking down his bike’s stand and waiting for Richard Campbell Gansey to turn around.

He does, and says, honey on tongue, “Adam Parrish, right?”

“Yes, Di—Richard Gansey?” Adam replies, sandpaper against lips.

“Just Gansey.”

With a quick look inside, Adam has already discerned the problem. “Do you want me to take a look at it? I know a little about cars.”

Adam’s world stops as Gansey replies curtly, “No.”

He remembers everything that moment, how hot his ears burn, how much he’s hated Aglionby, how he should have never stopped beside Richard Gansey’s car, how _unimportant_ he is compared to this boy. His father’s words the day he’d beat him up for getting accepted to Aglionby replays over and over in his mind.

You’re not that important, you’re not that important, _you’re not that important._

Then Gansey — the _real_ Gansey, the Gansey he would have done anything for — says, “I’d like you to show me how to fix it myself, if you could. There’s no point having this car if I can’t speak its language. Speaking of language, you school me at Latin _every day_. You’re as good as Ronan.”

Adam has wondered countless of times what would’ve happened had he not stopped that day. He wonders how long he’d have survived Aglionby.


	2. II. THE HANGED MAN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Ultimate surrender, sacrifice, or being suspended in time._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me? knowing wtf i am writing? it's less likely than u think.  
> not beta-ed

Blue Sargent is a shift in Adam’s life.

He doesn’t expect anything to come out of it, since he is quite sure he’d blown all his chances since the disastrous incident with Gansey. But the world decides to be kind to Adam for a while, and he leaves Nino’s that night with a smile on his face and Blue’s number on his hand.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Then he sees her at the psychics’ house, with feathered baby blue top and parted lips, staring at his battered face with wide curious eyes. He wonders just how exactly Blue Sargent fold into their life.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

The first time Ronan Lynch offered to teach him to fight coincided with the first time he stepped into Monmouth.

Adam took a beating last night, angered his father for the crime of existing, and he’s considered calling this off. But Gansey would drive his aggressively orange Camaro in the trailer park and that’s a can of worms Adam wants to avoid at all costs. Robert Parrish doesn’t like his son and he doesn’t like Aglionby, and anything that relates to the both of them. Richard C. Gansey overlaps both circles perfectly. So Adam swallowed whatever worries he had and knocked at the door of Monmouth. He tried to ignore the fact he’s wearing a faded t-shirt that clung tightly on some parts of his chest. It still fits, and that’s what matters.

Ronan — head freshly shaved and his back full of tattoo — swung open the door, took one look on the blooming bruise on Adam’s jaw and said, “What the fuck happened to you?”

“Jesus Christ, Ronan,” Gansey said. He’s wearing a pair of thin-wire glasses and his hazel eyes glanced at his jaw and flitted away. He stood up from the sofa and strode over to close the door.

Adam ignores Ronan. “Hey, Gansey.”

“Parrish, the fuck?”

Adam replied as curtly as possible, “None of your business.”

Ronan Lynch is a lot of things, contains multitudes in him, but tact is one thing he lacks. “You must be a lousy fighter, Parrish. Bruises on your face, but not on your hand?”

“Ronan,” Gansey said, “stop.”

“As I’ve said, it’s none of your business, Lynch,” Adam said. Fuck Ronan Lynch.

“I can teach you to fight, if you like,” Ronan continued. “It’s not the first time you showed up with bruises. People have eyes.”

“Ronan,” Gansey said.

“Thanks,” Adam said, “but no thanks. Fell down a stairs. Glendower, Gansey?”

Gansey looked immensely grateful at the subject change, and immediately launched into a speech, sitting back down the sofa and digging out a well-worn journal. Ronan though, crept behind Adam and said, “Stairs?”

“Yes, Lynch, stairs. You know, connects a floor to another?”

“Don’t be a smartass. You and I both know that’s not stairs.”

Adam turned and looked at Ronan straight in the eye. “Why do you care?”

Ronan didn’t answer. Adam waited for a beat before following Gansey back to the sofa.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Adam Parrish is a man of proof. There’s no place in his life for make-believes and what-could-haves. What he believes are hard cold facts, something he can hold and see and verify true.

But he believes in Gansey, and he believes in Gansey’s beliefs and he would do anything for him even if it means trudging through and trespassing fields with thigh high Virginian grass in broad daylight.

“ARE YOU LISTENING, GLENDOWER? I AM COMING TO FIND YOU!” Gansey looks alight, Gansey looks young, Gansey is on fire, and Adam would be damned if he keeps this from Gansey. He’d trudge through cornfields and rivers and fire for him. He embarks forward, a king in expedition.

The air smells of trees and somewhere in this grass Adam could hear a steady gurgle of water. Beside him, Blue Sargent looks right at home in her green dress that looks like it was made from scraps of clothes from different designs — some striped, some dotted, some even looks like velvet.

Blue reaches out her hand to Adam.

Adam grasps it without hesitation.

Hand-in-hand they climb in together behind Gansey. The trees before are larger but somehow they’ve become larger, their canopies higher and in a distance, he could see a clear pool. Adam could’ve sworn he heard music, could’ve sworn he heard —

“Noah?” Gansey calls out.

Adam’s heart leaps to his throat as Gansey turns to look to him.

 _It’s Noah, right?_ His gaze asks.

 _Yes,_ Adam’s answers.

Then Gansey’s eyes fall on his hand around Blue’s and his eyebrows knit in bemusement, like Adam and Blue together is a puzzle he can’t solve. Adam’s hand tightens around Blue’s almost instinctively, but he does not let go.

He does not want to let go.

Gansey turns back and kneels down beside the pool. Hovers his hand a millimeter above the still waters. A quick glance at the pool tells Adam there are hundreds of fishes below the surface, flashing black and silver as they swim through the water.

“How are there fish here?” Adam asks. It’s impossible, improbable — the stream they followed were too shallow for fishes to swim in, and more likely than not, this pool is fed by rainwater. Fish can’t possible fall from the _sky_.

Gansey replies, “I don’t know.”

Gansey lifts his eyes from the water and stares at the woods, awestruck. His eyes are blown wide open and it looks as if he’s seeing the world for the first time.

Blue lets go of Adam’s hand and walks towards Gansey. Her footfalls are soft and she lays her palm on the bark of a beech tree. She looks at Gansey.

“Adam.” It is Ronan’s voice, and Adam turns to see Ronan on the other side of the pool. He jerks his head, clearly intending for Adam to follow him.

“Check this out,” Ronan says. He looks impassive, voice flat.

An oak tree is behind him, with a hole in its trunk just enough for someone Adam’s size to fit in. The pool at his feet creates a warped reflection of Adam, Ronan, and the tree. Adam shivers involuntarily.

“What’s this?” he asks.

“Don’t know.” Ronan shrugs. “But I don’t think it’s just here coincidentally.”

Adam silently agrees. Nothing on this wood seems to just be here for no reason at all. This tree is placed here for _something_. He looks at the man-sized cavity in the trunk. He could fit in there perfectly, maybe even Ronan. It’s a miracle this tree even stands, considering the size of the hole and the fact that fungus around the entrance seems hell bent at enlarging the crater.

“Let’s call Gansey,” he says.

“Well, Gansey seems busy,” Ronan says with more bite than usual. Turning around, Adam sees Gansey with his hand in the pool, still kneeling. Beside him is Blue, her arms wrapped around herself. They are both deep in conversation.

Adam’s heart lurches. He feels like Gansey did when he saw Blue’s hand wrapped around Adam’s. He turns away.

“Well?” he says. He manages to keep the resentment out of his voice. “Get in.”

“I am not going in there.” From Ronan, it sounds like a principle, something he wouldn’t do on the basis of his belief. From Adam, he knew it would sound like cowardice.

“Fine, suit yourself.” Adam steps in the cavity. The air inside is damp and warm. It is as though the tree is alive.

On the outside, Ronan stares at Adam, eyebrows raised. “It’d work better if you close your eyes, Parrish.”

“How do you know?”

“A hunch.”

Taking a deep breath, Adam closes his eyes. Almost immediately, he senses something is different. Something is…off. It reeks in the air, this sense of _wrongness_ and Adam doesn’t want to open his eyes.

But he can’t afford fear, and so he does.

He almost screams.

Gansey convulses at his feet, his entire body covered in blood. Beside him is Ronan, bent over in grief. There’s blood in his hands, blood on the ground, _blood, blood, blood._

Ronan looks at Adam with bloodshot eyes, loathing clear in it. With a jolt, Adam realizes this is his fault.

He killed Gansey.

_He killed Gansey._

His eyes fly open for real and he stumbles out of the tree. Ronan moves as if to catch him but settles on lying a steady hand on his shoulder.

Adam’s shivering, he’s shaking and almost unconsciously, he wraps his arms around himself.

“Gansey!” he calls out. He doesn’t even care what Ronan thinks of him right now. “Gansey! Blue!”

Beside him, Ronan looks over his shoulders to peer at the cavity, posture defensive. Defensive of whom, Adam doesn’t know.

Blue and Gansey made their way towards them and Adam says, “Come here, and stand in there. And tell me if I’m losing my mind.” He can’t even be bothered to clip his accent.

“Are you okay?” Gansey asks, and Adam can’t find it in himself to look at him in the eye.

 _I killed him. I killed Gansey._ “Close your eyes. After you stand in there, I mean.”

“Did you go in there?” Gansey asks Ronan. He shook his head firmly.

Adam says, “He’s the one who pointed it out.”

“I’m not going in there,” he says matter-of-factly.

“I don’t mind,” Blue says. “I’ll go.”

 _Don’t!_ Adam wants to shout, but he only watches as Blue steps in the cavity and closes her eyes.

 _I would never do that_ , he wants to shout. _I’d never kill Gansey. Never_.

But he looks around him, at Gansey whose eyes are trained at Blue; at Ronan whose eyes are trained on him and shivers. Adam knows he’d never kill Gansey, never would he kill a friend, but Adam also knows poison is lodged deep in him. It runs in his blood and it pours out in mild dosages and he wonders how long it will take before the poison engulfs him entirely.

_Am I that poisoned? Am I that damaged?_

A rustling shakes him out of his reverie. Blue stumbles out of the tree. Adam moves to grab her hand and pull her toward him. He had meant to be gentle, to drag her as softly as he can, but he finds that his hands shake too badly for him to touch her delicately.

Blue shakes and there are tears flowing down her cheek. Adam wipes them away with the heel of his hand.

“I want you to know,” he says furiously, “I would never do that. It wasn’t real. I’d _never_ do that to him.”

Blue looks at him curiously. She must’ve seen a different vision than him, but he has to explain somehow. He’s never kill Gansey.

Ronan stares at the both of them as if he knew what they saw despite not having stepped in the tree himself.

Inside the cavity, Gansey’s head is bowed. He looks like he’s praying in reverence, his hands clasped in front of him. There is something different about him in that tree, like he _belongs_ in there. The trees create an overhead of leaves at his head, and the air permeates of otherness that Gansey sometimes exudes. He is Gansey in here and yet he is also something _more_.

Adam looks away. He can’t bear to look at Gansey once he opens his eyes.

“What did you see?” He hears Blue ask.

There’s a smile in Gansey’s voice as he replies, “I saw Glendower.”

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

 _Cabeswater_ , it’s called. _Cabeswater_ , it is written on stone in Ronan Lynch’s handwriting.

They’ve returned to the forest again, this time with Noah. Adam was originally surprised when Noah joined them. Glendower is usually something he doesn’t participate in.  He normally doesn’t express opinions, too, so when Noah suggests they look in further, they do.

  _Arbores loqui latine._ The trees speak Latin.

Gansey turns to Blue, “Okay, what do you want to say in Latin?”

Blue turns to Ronan. Over the course of the weeks, she has become a staple in the group, a missing puzzle piece they didn’t know they need. “Can you just say hello? It’s polite.”

Ronan looks pained. Polite isn’t really his style. “ _Salve_. That actually means _be well_.”

“Super job. Ask if they’ll speak with us.”

Ronan looks even more pained. “ _Luqure tu nobis?_ ”

They all tilt their heads towards the tree tops. Adam could hear whistling leaves and some cricket chirps, but nothing else.

“Nothing,” Ronan says. “What do you expect?”

“Quiet,” Gansey orders. Tension is visible on his face. “Do you hear that?”

All of them shake their heads, except for Noah. “I do.”

The tension bleeds out of Gansey. “Ask them to say it again,” he tells Ronan.

He does.

Gansey repeats the answer.

“They say they’ve been speaking to you already, but you haven’t been listening — Gansey, are you messing with me? Do you really hear something?”

A shiver runs through Adam. “Do you think Gansey’s Latin is that good?” he snaps. “It was _your_ handwriting on the rock, Ronan, that said they spoke Latin. Shut up.”

Gansey repeats a few more sentences, with Noah chirping in to correct some. It doesn’t help Adam’s nerves.

_They’re happy to see the psychic’s daughter._

_They’re happy to see the Greywaren again._

_Ronan. The Greywaren._

_The road isn’t awake._

_If you wake the line, they’ll be in debt._

Then Gansey asks about Glendower, and judging by the way his face falls, Adam knows he doesn’t have to relay the trees’ response to Ronan.

“Sorry,” Ronan is saying. They’ve asked for a way back home. “It’s difficult. It’s — they said that we need to go back through the year. Against … the road. The line. They said if we go back along the creek and turn left at the big … sycamore? _Platanus_? I think sycamore. Then we’ll find something they think we want to find. Then we’ll be able to walk out of the woods and find our way back to our … to our day. I don’t know. I missed parts, but I think — I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. You’re doing really well.” Gansey says.  To Adam, he asks, “Do you think we should do it? It occurs to me they might not be trusted.”

“Do we have another choice?” he says

“I think we should trust them,” Blue says. “They knew me and Ronan. Somehow. And the rock didn’t say not to. Right?”

Gansey hums. “Back we go. Careful not to slip. _Gratias. Reveniemus._ ”

They follow the directions and turn left at the sycamore. It is clear the opening there is summer.

In the clearing, entirely out of place, is a car. An abandoned red Mustang. Adam had though it was covered in mud, but a quick check tells him that it’s just coated with layers and layers of pollen and leaf litter.

On its windshield is an Aglionby sticker.

Another puzzle piece.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Then it’s revealed that Noah’s dead, has been for seven years, and has always been dead for as long as Adam knew him and the world’s turned upside down

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Magic is real, it’s real, it’s real and everywhere Adam looks seems to be coated in gold. They’re kings and queens of Henrietta, young blood infused with destiny and power imbued in victory. They’re invincible. _Adam’s_ invincible.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

 

Adam should’ve known it’s too good to last, should’ve known knowing the existence of magic would take something from him, something too valuable in exchange.

His left ear is still ringing. He can still feel on the shell of his ear, even though it’s been thoroughly washed out.

The harsh white light drains all the color in Adam’s eyes. Shades of white and black and grey are all that’s left.

His left ear is ringing. He couldn’t hear anything.

He’ll never hear anything.

Ronan has gone out to call Gansey, who’s been waiting in the parking lot in his ridiculous Camaro. Absentmindedly, Adam twists his paper bracelet.

He’s not covered in bruised and scratches. His father hadn’t left a physical mark on him. Just something permanent.

 _He’ll never hear again_.

Adam knows he should feel…something. Feel anger or sadness, _anything_. Instead, he’s numb. Something’s broken inside him, something permanent he’ll never get again.

 _God, he’s so tired_.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

The rest of the night feels like a fever dream. It feels like a nightmare.

He knows what he is doing, but everything feels like a movie. Like Adam is watching himself do things from a safe distance.

He watches as he takes his father’s gun, mind made up to awaken the ley line.

He watches as he steps in Cabeswater, eyes drawn to the center of a pentagram.

He watches as Barrington Whelk emerges from the woods. Watches as he sees Adam Parrish point a gun at him with shaking hands.

He watches as Gansey, Blue, and Ronan stumbles into the clearing.

He watches as he throws himself in the middle of the pentagram. _I will be your hands. I will be your eyes._

Ultimate surrender. Adam Parrish’s biggest sacrifice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow my [tumblr](http://maycastellan.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/jurdaparems) where i scream about raven boys and grishas and exy players. more recently, vicious villains.


	3. III. NINE OF SWORDS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Fear and anxiety, about all the things that worry you and keep you up at night._

Adam is different. Adam is other.

Adam can feel it, can see it in Gansey’s eyes. He can see it in the way Blue sometimes reel back from his touch, the way Noah sometimes looks afraid of him, or for him.

The only person who hasn’t looked at him any different is Ronan, who is in a way different too. Ronan Lynch, a dreamer. Cabeswater’s Greywaren.

Maybe they’re bound to be looped together. Others with the others.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Some days, he feels this otherness more than usual. Today is one of those days.

Adam sits at the reading room of 300 Fox Way, steadily ignoring the way Blue and Gansey gravitate around each other. They are both in the kitchen with Maura, talking in voices too low for him to hear.

He doesn’t know when it started, Blue and Gansey, but they both have to think him blind to not notice.

There’s a bag of tarot cards lying in the table, and without thinking, he reached out and grabs it. One by one, he puts down a card face up.

_The Fool. The Magician. The High Priestess. The Empress. The Emperor. Wheel of Fortune. The Hanged Man. Death. The Devil. The Tower._

His hand brushes over the cards one-by-one. Before Cabeswater, he wouldn’t have cared about them. The cards wouldn’t have felt warm. He wouldn’t be drawn to them.

That would’ve been true. Before Cabeswater.

Gansey shouts something, and Adam tries to turn his focus towards the kitchen, to hear whatever they’re conversing about. Instead, all he hears is Maura.

“I think I need to have a conversation with that boy,” she says in so low a tone Adam barely caught it. Somehow, he thinks they aren’t talking about _Gansey_.

“Someone does,” Calla says in a much louder voice. A stair creaks. She must’ve been climbing to the second floor. “Not me. I’ve outgrown train wrecks.”

 _Definitely not Gansey_. “Is he a train wreck?” Blue says. The alarm in her voice makes it just as loud as Calla.

“Calla likes drama. Train wreck! When a train takes a long time to go off tracks, I don’t like to call it a wreck. I like to call it a _derailment_.”

Even in the reading room, Adam hears Calla cackle.

“I hate both of you,” Blue says. “You’re supposed to use your powers for good, you know!”

Suddenly unable to bear it, Adam calls out, without lifting his eyes from the cards, “I could hear y’all, you know.”

A pause. “Do you think you’re a train wreck?” Blue asks.

“That would mean I was on the tracks to start with,” he replies. Calla’s and Maura’s words roll off him quite easily. _Train wreck_. Adam knows he is a train wreck in the making long before Calla and Maura pointed it out.

Adam Parrish: Cabeswater’s eyes, Cabeswater’s hands. A train wreck.

It’s quite fitting, he thinks.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

If Adam Parrish is a train wreck, Joseph Kavinsky is an explosion.

 _Explosion_ seems too soft a word to use. _Bombing_ may be a more suitable one. Adam may have left a sizable amount of wreckage in his waste, but it isn’t always his intention. It is just a side effect, something that comes inherently from being Adam Parrish. Kavinsky on the other hand lives for the charred ruins and the wildfire he leaves behind.

He remembers Kavinsky earlier in Aglionby. He looks both Aglionby-like and _un_ Aglionby-like. Like most Aglionby boys, Kavinsky exudes an aura of self-importance, like he expects everyone to heed his commands and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Unlike most Aglionby boys, he is unmistakably _other_ , the sort of raven boy that is clearly an import. Hollowed cheekbones matching hollowed eyes matching hallowed heart.

He was infamous, even then. He circulated the rumors no one is willing to talk out loud about but everyone knows of.

He walked around Henrietta like a predator seeking prey.

And it seems like he had set his eyes on one. Ronan Lynch.

Adam doesn’t claim he understands what’s going on between the two, what sort of bad blood simmers beneath smirks and raised eyebrows and threats disguised at gifts thrown on tables. All he knows is something is coming up, and it’s something _big_.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Adam wonders if Henrietta dirt will forever be lodged in him, forever be etched in his bones. He wonders if people will look at Adam and see blood on his hands and clipped vowels struck in his throat, wonders if that’s all they see even when he’s dressed in a crisp black suit.

Gansey — the Gansey Adam would do anything for — had disappeared and in his place stands Richard C. Gansey III, heir born of silk umbilical cord. He looks every inch a golden boy, unattainable in status and wealth.

Adam Parrish looks a fraud. Virginian filth playing dress up with D.C.’s elite.

Out of the corner of his eye, Adam could see a wailing woman. Her cries permeate the air, taunting Adam with the knowledge he’ll never let go of Henrietta, never let go of Cabeswater and his promise.

“In we go,” Gansey says.

The woman’s cries drown out Adam’s thumping heart. There’s no way this would end well.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Adam was correct, as he always is when it comes to his misfortune, and so he spent half his Saturday walking.

He doesn’t know where he’s going, only he’s walking out. Out of Gansey or the apparitions of Cabeswater, he does not know. He’s walking, feet on concrete but everything else on Cabeswater.

Overhead, ravens fly. Women in dresses flash by in the corner of his eye, disappearing when he looks at them directly. Men in coats stare at him, pale eyes pinning him.

_What do you want what do you want what do you want?_

His head hurts. He and Gansey fought. He doesn’t remember why or how.

His head hurts.  He keeps on walking. He’s walking and walking and _walking_ and he doesn’t know how to stop. Doesn’t know when to stop.

“Honey?” A car rolls to a stop beside him. Adam halts. A woman looks at him, lips pursed, eyes soft. “Are you okay?”

“I—”he starts. “I don’t know.” His accent is pronounced and he can’t clip them off.

“Are you lost?”

“I think so.”

The woman opens the door and walks toward him. She holds out a phone. “Here,” she says. “Call who you need to call.”

“Thank you.” Adam stares at the phone, his head blank. He can’t remember Gansey’s number. It took him a few tries to get it right.

“Hello?” It’s Gansey. His voice is terse, coiled.

“Gansey?”

“Jesus, Adam.” Relief is clear on Gansey’s voice.

“I couldn’t remember your number,” he says. He can’t seem to clip his accent or hide his misery.

“Where are you?”

“I don’t know. Where am I?” The last question is directed to the woman.

“I’ll take it from here, sweetie.” Adam passes her phone back to her. “Hello. Are you a friend of this kid?” A pause. “He’s just walking. I thought he was lost or something. Are you close by? Can you come get him? We’re near exit seven on 395 south.” Longer pause.  “He might need a doctor.” A pause. “I don’t know.”

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Something is inherently broken in Adam. Something shifted and he could feel it bubbling beneath his skin, a poison ready to strike.

He isn’t even surprised Blue broke up with him. He knows how Blue looks at Gansey and how Gansey looks back.

What he is surprised, though, is her curse.

 _If I kiss my true love, he dies_ , Blue says. It repeats over and over and over again in his head. _It’s not going to be you._

 _Why does it even matter?_ He wants to scream. He wants to tear this house down, tear it down until his hands become all flayed and bloody. _If I’m not your true love, your kiss doesn’t even matter. If I am, then I would_ die _and why would that even matter to you? It doesn’t to me_.

He doesn’t know how he got from Blue’s bedroom to the reading room with Persephone. A scrying bowl lies on top of the table.

“If I do it,” he asks, “I will be changed forever?”

Persephone looks at him with her sad — no, _melancholic_ — eyes and tells him he’s been changed already.

He dives in.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

The tower. His past.

The hanged man. His present.

Nine of Swords. His future.

The Magician. His end.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Adam knows Ronan is like him, knows he is other just as well, though he never really thought of it until today.

He’s racing against time, racing against whatever monster Kavinsky’s dreamed up of. There are two dreamers in Henrietta, and that is one too many.

Ronan needs the ley line _now_ , there’s no time.

But the ley line is dead, and Cabeswater is unresponding, and Adam feels less the Magician he should be.

“Your power, Adam, isn’t about other people. It’s not about other _things,_ ” Persephone is saying. “Being the Magician isn’t about being powerful when uou have things and useless when you don’t. The Magician sees what is out there and makes connections. The Magician can make anything magical.” Persephone holds his gaze and her voice is small and soft. “Are you the Magician? Or aren’t you?”

He closes his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i swear i'll post the last chapter before next week ends dsifjasdklf
> 
> follow my [tumblr](http://maycastellan.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/jurdaparems) where i scream about raven boys and grishas and exy players. more recently, vicious villains.


	4. IV. THE MAGICIAN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Talents, capabilities and resources at the querent's disposal to succeed. A need to transform something._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello i have no excuse for posting late aside from the fact my school started and i became busy so, um, sorry? also i have quite a plan here, which involves retelling the whole ending of trk, but i realized its: a.) way too long and b.) i basically just rewrote the end of trk and just changed a few lines so in the end i decided to just focus on the aftermath of the ending (which is to say i add one scene after sfkhd). so long story short there's a time skip somewhere and i'm sorry if it got too weird? i might add a few more scenes as an epilogue or something but for now this is the end. so. big ass yikes. 
> 
> again, this is barely edited so. kindly point out mistakes i know i have made somewhere.
> 
> anyways, hope you enjoy?? hopefully??

Being Cabeswater’s Magician is another responsibility for Adam, but he has been piling works after works on his shoulder, and how different can it be, really?

The answer: a _lot_. It was hard to focus in class or work when faces appear in mirrors, when invisible women cry in your ear, when smoky hands reach out to you.

Adam Parrish is sitting in class and a fierce wind blows through him, even though Aglionby’s classrooms are air-conditioned and the windows are barred shut.

Adam Parrish is working and suddenly the wall closes in on him. A cold hand runs through his hair, his cheek, his neck.

Adam Parrish is in the bathroom and a humanlike figure appears behind the mirror, begging for help.

But then Maura Sargent disappears and Colin Greenmantle arrives in Henrietta, and everything just goes to _shit_ once again.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Ronan Lynch may have been a snake, a dreamer, a fighter, but he’s never been a liar.

Adam feels dirty asking him to do this, like he is rubbing his Henrietta dirt, his Parrish poison on him but there’s no other way.

There’s no way they can convict Greenmantle for killing Niall Lynch, but if they _invented_ the crime, Adam could control the pieces.

A twisted game for a twisted boy.

Adam watches as Ronan studies the list of evidences he needs to procure. He looks different when he isn’t actively trying to look as much of an asshole as possible. The bite isn’t gone; it’s just diminished enough to be startling.

“I’ll do it now,” Ronan says.

“ _Now?_ ”

Ronan sneers. “No time like the present, Parrish.”

Now it is.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

And he watches as dream Ronan dies. Watches as Ronan passively look at his own writhing body as if it isn’t the first time he saw himself dead. He realizes how little he knows of Ronan Lynch.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Kings aren’t meant to be dragged in the filthy games his magician and dreamer play. They’re meant to sit on thrones, hems of their clothes clean and perfect. And so Adam and Ronan keep their meetings to themselves.

It’s quite easy, since Adam knows Blue and Gansey keep _their_ meetings a secret too.

He wonders how he can’t possibly know Ronan, half-dreamer and half-dreamed, and he resolve to keep his eye on him.

Adam is correct on one assumption: he knew one side of Ronan and assumed it’s all of him. He assumed Ronan Lynch with his sharp smile and sneers is all there is to him.

Now he’d seen him with his own blood on his hands. He’d seen him with his dreams, in his home, surrounded by magical things. It’s seems fitting, Adam thinks, for Ronan to be born of dreamer and dream.

He looks at him, kneeling on a pew, face awash by church lights in the middle of the night. Sees the way Ronan _belongs_ in here, like he did back at Monmouth, at the Barns. Wonders how he could pray to God when he’s playing at God with every dream he has.

Adam looks at Ronan, and Ronan looks back, like he has been doing for months.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

For Adam, Aglionby was never just a school. It’s a stepping stone, a necessary sacrifice Adam has to give to be able to leave Henrietta.

He’d slogged through years at Aglionby with barely any sleep, with less than a dollar in his pocket. He stepped in its premises with bruises of various color hidden underneath sweaters. He attended class with his stomach growling, with water as the only relief for hunger.

Aglionby is a crucial step in his quest of leaving Henrietta, Virginia, and he’ll be damned if he throw all of this away.

Adam is drowning from it all, from Agliony and Cabeswater and Maura and Ronan. But he’ll stay afloat. He _has_ to. There’s no other way.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Sometimes, Adam is scared of Persephone.

Not _scared_ in the way a child might be of the dark but the kind of scared that comes from seeing a duplicate of yourself. The kind of scared Adam had been when he saw dream Ronan die.

Of course Persephone is the furthest from Adam physically. But her otherness trails her like a shadow or perhaps like her never-ending hair and Adam wonders if _his_ otherness trails him too. He wonders if it will be his permanent shadow the way Henrietta and his father do.

Persephone sits on a rocking chair outside a general store that would’ve been out of place anywhere else but is quite common in Henrietta.

“I thought at first you might replace one of us if something ever happens,” she admits in that strange airy manner of hers.

Adam gapes at her. “Me?”

“You’re a very good listener.”

“But I’m — I’m—” All his words leave him. “Leaving.”

But Persephone only smiles sadly. “But I see now that it could never be. You’re just like me. We’re not really like the others.”

_Other what? Humans?_

“We’re really better in our own company,” she continues. “It makes it hard, sometimes, for others, when they can’t understand us.”

“Don’t tell me Maura is dead.”

Persephone only gazes at him with her black, black eyes.

“Can you see your own death?” he asks in a low voice.

“Everyone sees it,” she says. “Most people make themselves stop looking though.”

“I don’t see my own death.”

She sees through his lie.

“Do you know how Gansey dies?”

She says, “Go get yourself a cherry cola.”

He doesn’t take it. “I want to know how long you’ve known about Gansey. From the beginning?” She only gazes at him and anger rolls off of him. “From the beginning. You knew it when he walked in the door for the reading! Were you ever going to tell us?”

“I don’t know why I would do such a ridiculous thing. Get your cola.”

“When I find Glendower, I’m asking him for Gansey’s life and that’ll be that.”

Persephone doesn’t answer.

“Tell me then! Tell me what to do, tell me how to save him!”

“For how long?” Persephone asks him.

“Stop! Stop that! Stop being so — so — zoomed out! I can’t look at the big picture all the time, or what’s the point? Just tell me how I can I keep from killing him!”

Persephone cocks her head. “What makes you think _you_ kill him?”

Adam goes inside to buy his cola. He goes back out to find the porch empty and Persephone missing.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Maura Sargent is alive, but Persephone Poldma is dead, and now Adam has truly felt the magnitude of it all.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Something is wrong with Cabeswater. Something — or some _one_ — is taking generous amount of energy from the ley line.

Adam can feel it the way one does when they’re jerked from sleep with the sensation of falling. The ground is pulled from his feet and he’s falling, falling, falling…

Something’s wrong with Cabeswater. They’re playing a much dangerous game now with much dangerous foes.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Cabeswater is darker, its shadows longer and for the first time in months, Adam Parrish is afraid.

“Day,” he says, the same time Ronan says, “ _Fiat lux._ ”

The darkness remains. Adam frowns.

“I said, _fiat lux,_ ” Ronan snaps. “ _Amabo te,_ ” he adds placating. Or as much placating as Ronan Lynch could be.

Slowly, the dark begins to bleed out. It isn’t that the _light_ shines through, but the dark bled out. From what little light is left, Adam could see that Cabeswater is…wrong. It is as if something had leeched the magic out of it and left only rotten trees in its wake.

“You still up for this?” Ronan asks.

Adam hesitates. Then he nods.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Ronan Lynch had always been a mystery.

No, mystery implies Ronan is subtle, something that bubbles beneath Adam’s skin that he does not yet know of.

No. Ronan is not a mystery. He is a heart attack, noticeable and sudden and _deadly_. Except this heart attack hasn’t yet stopped.

Adam wonders if it ever will.

He knows how Ronan looks at him, knows the way dark eyes flit towards him and flits away. He knows how often his gaze falls on him and how heavy.

_Adam Parrish is wantable, worthy of a crush, not just by anyone, someone like Ronan, who could want Gansey or anyone else and chose Adam for his hungry eyes._

Ronan Lynch is a dreamer, Ronan Lynch is a dream. He grew up in a magical house full of magical items with a magical mother. He brings about hooved girls and screaming ravens and blond brothers from his dreams, pulls out entire forests from his head.

The only thing that can be pulled out from Adam Parrish’s head is darkness, of that he is sure.

Adam wonders what could have possible drawn someone like Ronan to someone like him.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

It’s 6:21 and Adam watches as Ronan plunge into a pool of clear water after Orphan Girl.

He runs towards the edge of the pool, sees just how far Ronan and the girl sank. Waits for Ronan to grab Orphan Girl and swim back up. But he isn’t. He’s sinking, sinking, sinking. _Why aren’t you moving, Ronan?_

Something’s wrong, something’s horribly wrong. He takes out stones, spills it over the bank of the book. Crouching, he arranges the stones in a pattern. _Cabeswater, Cabeswater,_ please _._

Cabeswater heaves around him, shuffling, trying to grant his appeal. Adam closes his eyes and reaches down even further. _Cabeswater, keep him safe. Do you hear me? Keep him safe. Keep your Greywaren safe._

Cabeswater is shrugging, trying to accommodate its Magician. Normally, Cabeswater would’ve listened. Normally, Cabeswater would’ve known its Greywaren is in danger, that its Magician is crying for help. But something is blocking them both. No matter how far Adam reaches, he can’t grasp Cabeswater.

_PLEASE!_

Something shifts. Adam could feel Cabeswater respond, no matter how small it may be. _Cabeswater, pull through_.

His head hurts. His eye twitches. His hand moves on its own accord. Somehow, he knows he’s not dealing with just Cabeswater here. There’s something more, something malevolent.

He hears a splash, then someone falling on the ground.

“Parrish,” Ronan says.

Adam looks up. At least he thinks he did. His head hurts. His hand shakes. Orphan Girl is speaking, though he can’t hear her, and Ronan’s hand is on arm.

“Don’t forget she’s coming with us,” he says.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Adam doesn’t know how long he’s been looking back at Ronan.

He wonders if it started at the Barn, with Greenmantle looming at the horizon. Magician and dreamer, working side-by-side to remove the dirt from the king’s hems. He wonders if that made him look.

He wonders if it’s the moment Ronan told them he dreamt Chainsaw. Or Cabeswater. Maybe this is an adoration that stemmed from awe.

Now, with Adam’s lips on Ronan’s and his hand on him and cold wind against them both, he realizes the truth.

It didn’t start at the Barn, nor did it with Ronan’s dreams. Adam has been looking back at him from the start.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

The night begins to wail.

This began as a game of sorts for Adam, a belief of someone else’s. This began with the friendship he has with Gansey and he never really thought it could come true.

This evolved to awe. Raw magic and power at their fingertips, a whole new world discovered.

This? This is neither of those. This is horror.

Aurora Lynch is dead. Ronan is the last of the Lynches in Henrietta, with Matthew and Declan off to D.C.

Ronan sits motionless behind the wheel of his BMW, eyes blank. A flicker of light on the passenger seat tells Adam Noah is sitting there as well. Gansey tries Ronan’s door, finds it unlock, and opens it.

“Ronan,” Gansey says gently.

Adam shivers.

Blue puts her arm around him, enveloping him as much as she can. She’s trying her best to comfort him, but every time he blinks, he can still see Aurora and the blood on Orphan Girl’s arms as she dragged her through Cabeswater.

Adam shivers again.

“Ronan,” Gansey tries again.

“I’m waiting for you to tell me what to do, Gansey,” Ronan says in a very low voice. “Tell me where to go.”

“We can’t undo this,” Gansey says. “I can’t undo this.”

Ronan’s eyes lack their fire as he says, “I know I can’t undo this. I’m not stupid. I want to _kill_ it.” His voice is low, kept in tenuous control. “I’m not going to let it get to Matthew. I could feel it in the dream. I could feel what it wanted. It’s unmaking everything I’ve dreamt. I’m not going to let that happen. I’m not going to lose anyone else. You know how to kill it.”

Adam draws in a shaky breath as Gansey replies, “I don’t know how to find Glendower.”

“You do, Gansey. I know you do. And when you’re ready to get him, I’ll be sitting right here, waiting to go where you tell me.”

A tear runs down his cheek but he doesn’t seem to notice it. He tugs his car door close, leaving Blue, Gansey, and Adam out.

Adam can’t seem to stop shaking.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

BMW’s car door flies open. Orphan Girl shrieks. Adam jolts awake. His mind goes to everywhere and nowhere at once: Aurora’s body, her blood on Orphan Girl’s, Ronan’s blank eyes, Adam sleeping on the BMW’s passenger seat to keep Ronan company, aside from his grief.

“I don’t _know,_ ” Blue is saying. It takes Adam way too long before he realizes she isn’t talking to either him or Ronan.

Gwenllian caws something behind Blue. Blue studiously ignores her. “Ronan. Did you see where Gansey went?” Blue asks.

The last of Adam’s grogginess disappears.

“He’s on the hunt!” Gwenllian shrills gleefully.

“Stut _up,_ ” Blue growls. “Gansey’s gone after Glendower. The Pig’s gone. Gwenllian says he went after birds. Did yousee where he went? He’s not picking up his phone!” She sweeps her hand behind her wildly.

“He can’t go alone,” Adam says. His mind goes to everywhere and nowhere at once: Gansey dead, Gansey convulsing, Gansey gone. “He’ll do something stupid.”

“I’m infinitely aware,” Blue replies. “I’ve called him. I’ve called Henry, to see if we could use RoboBee. No one’s picking up. I don’t even know if calls are going through.”

“Maybe I can scry,” Adam says. _Gansey dead, Gansey convulsing, Gansey gone_. “I don’t know that I’ll know where it is, though. If he’s somewhere I haven’t been, I won’t recognize it and we’ll have to piece together clues.”

“That will take _forever_.”

Beside him, Ronan says something. It’s too soft, too quiet, not like Ronan at all.

“I’ll dream something,” he says again. “Something to find Gansey. Like Henry Cheng’s RoboBee. It only has to have one purpose. Something small. I can do it fast.”

“You could be killed fast, you mean,” Adam says. _Ronan dead, Ronan convulsing, Ronan dead._ Adam’s mind is still reeling.

Ronan doesn’t reply.

“Cabeswater won’t help you,” he presses on. _You can’t do this_ , is what he wants to say. “It can only hinder you. You’d have to try to create something not terrible among all that, which seems impossible to start and then you’d have to bring back that, _and only that_ , from the dream, which sounds even more impossible.”

 _You can’t do this. You_ can’t _, you’ll die_.

“I’m aware of how dreaming works, Parrish.” There is no bite on his voice though. No nothing.

Adam understands what he’s not saying. _I can’t find Gansey’s body too. Gansey can’t die. I won’t let it._

So Adam swallows and says, “I’ll scry.”

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Henry Cheng is standing outside a cave opening beneath a house in a Virginian field.

Ronan opens his mouth — either in shock or to berate Henry or _something_ — but Blue beats him. “Henry! Have you seen Gansey?”

“In here,” he says. He’s wearing Gansey’s coat.

“And you didn’t follow?” Ronan says.

“Dick didn’t ask me to,” Henry says. “I have a feeling the court would follow their king.”

“You joining us?” Blue asks.

“Of course.”

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

They found Gansey underground, lights from their flashlight washing through his body.

“You dumb shit,” Ronan says.

For once, Gansey seems speechless. When he speaks, it’s to Henry. “I thought you were staying behind.”

“Yeah, me too,” Henry says. “Then I thought, I can’t let Gansey Three wander around in a mysterious pit alone. Plus, someone has to bring the rest of your court.”

Blue steps forward and flings her arms around Gansey. His arms tighten around her.“Why would you go alone?”

“I was trying to be heroic,” he says. Adam could hear his breath. _In, out. In, out_. “I didn’t want you guys to hurt anymore.”

Adam almost laughs, but all he says is, “You dumb shit.”

Gansey rests his cheek on top of  Blue’s head. “How did you find me?”

“Ronan nearly died making something to track you,” Adam says as Ronan opens his hand to show Ganset the firefly that led them to him. Gansey looks at Ronan. Ronan looks back.

“Now what?” Gansey says.

“Tell me to ask RoboBee to find your king,” Henry says immediately.

Adam could see Gansey’s mind reel, assessing each one of them. “Please. Please help me.”

Henry tosses the bee into the air. “I thought you’d never ask.”

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Glendower is dead. Glendower has always been dead.

Bones and dust. Dust and bones. That’s all there is.

“Is that — is that what’s he’s supposed to look like,” Henry asks.

Gansey doesn’t reply.

Bones and dust. Dust and bones. Is this what Glendower is supposed to look like? Is this supposed to be the end of their quest?

“Are we…” Adam starts and stops, uncertain.

Gansey covers his mouth with his hand. He’s breathing deeply and not breathing at all.

“Are we supposed to wake his bones?” Blue asks. “Like the skeletons in the cave of bones.”

Adam says, “That’s what I was going to say but…” He trails off. Magic and possibility crackle in the air. Waking these bones seems incredible but not impossible.

Gansey takes a deep breath. “Wake up,” he says quietly. “Wake up,” he says again.

Nothing happens.

“Wake. Up.”

Nothing.

Glendower is still dead.

 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*  *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

The night still wails, even when light starts piercing through. Adam doesn’t know if it’s exhaustion or pure will that made it seem as though the night is longer than it really is.

They missed a day. A whole _day_ in the ley line, even though it’s just hours. It felt longer than _just hours._

His hands. His eyes. He lend Cabeswater his hands and his eyes as a sacrifice and the demon plaguing Cabeswater had access to him through it. The scratches on his face made by his own hand against his own will throb. He nearly killed Ronan with it, tore out Blue’s stitches with it.

Gansey died. He died and he came back and Cabeswater’s dead — no, Cabeswater is not dead, just _gone_ , just left Henrietta but not _dead_ — and Gansey’s alive.

It feels longer than just hours. And yet it was. Just hours.

Adam sits on the steps of 300 Fox Way, away from the Maura and Calla and Gansey and Blue and Ronan.

Gansey who’s dead but brought to life.

Blue whom stiches he tore out.

Ronan whom he just tried to kill. It doesn’t matter if it wasn’t his will. It was his hands that closed on his throat. Adam breathes out and closes his eyes.

“Parrish.” It’s Ronan. Adam doesn’t have to look up to know it’s Ronan. “Why are you out?”

Adam doesn’t answer. He feels Ronan’s eyes on him but he doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t look back at him. He _can’t_.

“You can’t beat yourself up forever,” Ronan says.

“Can’t I?” Adam replies.

“It’s not your fault, Adam,” Ronan insists, growling.

“It’s my hands, Ronan,” Adam says miserably “I nearly _killed_ you and I would have—”

In a second, Ronan is sitting next to him, hand on his. “Look at me. Adam, look at me.” Adam does. “It’s not your fault. I don’t blame you. Adam, I don’t lie, not to you.”

Adam looks into Ronan’s eyes and knows he’s not lying. He still remembers his hand’s movement, his hand closing in on Ronan’s throat, his hands, his hands, his _damned_ hands —

He closes his eyes and nods.

He feels Ronan pull him in and his head rests on Ronan’s shoulder. His arms are around him. Adam breathes in, breathes Ronan in.

This is a change he welcomes in.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow my [tumblr](http://maycastellan.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/jurdaparems) where i scream about raven boys and grishas and exy players. more recently, vicious villains and four londons.

**Author's Note:**

> follow my [tumblr](http://maycastellan.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/jurdaparems) where i scream about raven boys and grishas and exy players. more recently, vicious villains.


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